Big Pacific Naval War Movies

Started by airboy, January 04, 2020, 08:53:15 PM

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airboy

I bought Tora! Tora! Tora! and watched it for the first time in 30+ years today.
I saw the new Midway at the theater.
I rewatched the 1976 Midway before seeing the new Midway.
My intestines prevent me from watching Pearl Harbor.   These are the big naval war movies that come to mind.

Tora! Tora! Tora! is really well made.  Historically accurate.  Very long.  The best of the bunch although watching the USA get clobbered is not fun.  Still, a very well done movie.  Worked in a lot of historical footage.

The New Midway was excellent.  It focused more on the dive bomber & torpedo plane pilots & carrier navigation to evade bombs & torpedoes.  But it caught the situation after Pearl Harbor with the raids and the overall desperate situation leading up to Midway.  This was a clear 2nd place.  Special effects were amazing.

1976 Midway - had that horrible love scene and everything involved with the couple & their Dad. It worked in a lot of historical footage and also did a good job on the search for the carriers by both sides.

Pearl Harbor - it has Ben Afflack; it has some sort of weird personal drama; and it ends up with the Pearl Harbor attack.  At least that is what rumor tells me.  My intestines threatened to jump through my throat and choke me to death if I watched it.

I picked up 12 O'clock High as part of the collection with Tora! Tora! Tora!  I also want to watch 30 Seconds Over Tokyo which I don't think I've ever seen.

Tripoli

12 o'clock high is excellent. Back in my day the military used it as a training film to teach leadership principles. The scriptwriter for the movie was a B17 combat veteran
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Atilla60

@Airboy

Trust me, if the love story in the 1976 Midway turned you off (I was). You definitely do not want to watch Pearl Harbor.
The whole plot is centered around two brothers and one girl. From start to finish. The strike on pearl (well made as it is) is a secondary story -about 20-25 minutes of the movie.
I watched it and left the theater with the same feeling I did after watching The Thin Red Line .. I.e I was in WTF-territory. Did I just watch a social-realism drama, a war movie .. a love story
My advice is: If you don't trust me, trust your intestines

I haven't watched the new Midway or 12 O'clock High. So I can't really comment on them.

Tora Tora Tora I've seen several times over the years and IMO it's still the best movie on the subject. Way ahead of its time.
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GibbyG

So much tough love for Pearl Harbor :)

It is actually about two best friends who fall for Kate Beckensale.  So it does have Kate going for it.

And it ends at Doolittle's raid.

Staggerwing

Quote from: challerain on January 04, 2020, 11:23:05 PM
So much tough love for Pearl Harbor :)

It is actually about two best friends who fall for Kate Beckensale.  So it does have Kate going for it.

And it ends at Doolittle's raid.

Don't forget that there's some Battle of Britain in there as well...
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The_Admiral

But if you're after decent - if lesser-known, and not as "big" - PTO-related hollywood drama, I can think of three right now - and each of them belong to a characteristic era they certainly reflect in their own way:

A Wing & a Prayer (1944)
A movie about a squadron of TBF pilots living in harm's way in the Pacific aboard an Essex-class carrier. Focuses on the daily routine among the bros, so don't worry, no woman-induced romance allowed on the grounds of the ready-room  :dreamer:
As a war-time drama, footage involve actual planes and actual ships of the era, although naturally the Japanese airplanes on the other hand were replaced by US planes with funny markings instead.

Task Force (1949)
This movie in which Gary Cooper and Jane Wyatt star is pretty much the anti-Pearl Harbor - because it follows the same narrative, and involves a love story too, but it's all working much better. In this case, the love story actually matters in ways that will not shock nor disappoint anybody in here. The wife of the main protagonist has an actual personality and a pivotal role in the movie, and is not some sort of McGuffin disguised as a love-interest over whom the main characters are supposed to fight. The film itself has a lot of contents, as an homage to naval aviation, from the days of USS Langley to the end of WW2. The interesting thing is that it came out pretty much at the time of the "Revolt of the Admirals", when the navy was actually in danger of losing its status & its assets, being bullied hard by the Air Force (and to a lesser extent, the Army) and branded as a irrelevant branch now that a B-36 was supposedly able to deliver the A-Bomb anywhere in the world, anytime. A sad episode that cost a lot of good officers their advancement or even their career. Taking into account the bad press the Navy had at that time, including the flak it took from the opinion, it is all the more interesting to see it as some sort of pamphlet made in order to save carriers.

The Gallant Hours (1960)
This one is more of a historical documentary than an actual "war drama", as there are no combat scene. No love story either, except that of Halsey with his staff! It recounts Halsey's tenure as SOPAC commander when he relieved Admiral Ghormley by mid-October 1942, during the most critical weeks of the fighting for Guadalcanal. It is mostly shot at Halsey's headquarters, with the occasional field trip to Guadalcanal. It is also rather special in its representation of the Japanese side, as the IJN staff scenes are played entirely in Japanese, with a rather exceptional will to depict them as human beings. There are a few voluntary inaccuracies for dramatic effect (aka the killing of Yamamoto that happened months later, not in this timeframe) and Halsey feels like a sweet guy, as they didn't try to depict his most excessive traits and stayed close to the historical narrative instead. Still, anybody interested in the theater might want to watch that.

Gusington

I am with Attila on Pearl Harbor. Do not watch it if you enjoyed Tora Tora Tora even a little bit.

One of my favorite movies of all time that is directly connected to the Pacific War is Empire of the Sun - Christian Bale's first big movie, with direction by Steven Spielberg.

Not much naval action (although there is one great scene in the beginning that kicks everything off that involves a IJN warship), Empire of the Sun is much more involved with aviation.


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Toonces

As Tripoli mentioned, I watched 12 o'clock High during my leadership course at the Naval War College.  It was very, very good and I highly recommend it.  It's not a movie I would have ever considered under other circumstances, but now that I've seen it I can assure you it's worth your time.
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Tripoli

Quote from: Toonces on January 05, 2020, 02:52:56 PM
As Tripoli mentioned, I watched 12 o'clock High during my leadership course at the Naval War College.  ...

What year did you graduate from NWC?  I graduated in 1998.
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besilarius

Maybe not a BIG Pacific war movie, but Run Silent, Run Deep is a good movie.
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My all-time favorite naval battle scene is the climax of, "In Harm's Way" with The Duke. If those scenes were food, I'd eat them till I puke.  :notworthy:
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